Doctor Who - "The Pandorica Opens," Episode 1

Spoiler Level: High

Wowwwww. What an ending!!

Observa- tions:

* "Doesn't it bother you that your life doesn't make any sense?" Now you could assume that he was simply referring to the fact that Amy now has gaps in her memory from her fiancé being erased from history, but seeing as how he also brought up her "house with too many rooms" he seems to think it runs deeper. See, I knew there was more to Amy than just her not being fleshed out as much as the previous companions. The Doctor thinks everything has been pulled from Amy's memory to create the trap, but I think Amy herself was the trap. I think she's a creation of the Alliance, the perfect bait to pull the Doctor in and get him where they want him, and probably how they've been tracking him in the first place. The question is, did they create a real person who will still be able to exist and become her own person after the trap is over?

Oh, wait a minute, there is no "after." Okay, Amy's been killed, but then again the entire universe has been wiped out, so assuming there really is a next episode, something's going to have to be reset. Speaking of which...

* Rory's back! Okay, he woke up as a Roman right after being erased... an Auton Roman that was pulled from Amy's memory of her book. Which again leads me to believe that Rory is simply part of The Amy Trap. Amy is the key to the entire trap, Rory was created to give Amy a credible backstory, and once Rory was removed from the game he simply "respawned" at the final level of the game.

The only part that bothers me about this is that the return of "the other companion" for the finale is becoming too formulaic. Remember back when I watched "Cold Blood" and I said "I suppose there's a chance The Crack might bring him back or something like that at the end of the season"? Mickey comes back at the end of Series 2 (28), Jack comes back at the end of Series 3 (29), everyone comes back at the end of Series 4 (30), Donna & Wilf come back at the end of The Year of Specials (31), and now Rory comes back at the end of Series Fnarg /5 (32). I'm sure Rory's being erased and returned is a crucial part of the story ("It's staring me in the face and I'm not seeing it,") but I still would have liked it if Rory had stayed around for the rest of the season and we could have explored the dynamic of a couple in the TARDIS.

* Just what is causing the TARDIS to blow up in the first place? All we know is that someone else was controlling it, making it go to 26 June 2010, planted it in a place where River couldn't leave and then made it blow up. Who? Why?

And last but not least... WHAT AN AWESOME FLEET!! Daleks, Cybermen, Autons, Sontarrans, Judoon, CHELONIANS!!!, Zygons, Silurians... wait a minute, Silurians don't have spaceships, and they should still be asleep at this point, shouldn't they? Never mind, just seeing a crowd of all of the Doctor's enemies closing in on him was awesome.

The thing is, the whole Alliance is obviously being manipulated by whoever stole the TARDIS. So even though the universe has ended, there's still a lot of unanswered questions. Here's hoping the second half is as cool as the first half was.